


La Vie en Rose

by KingFarbauti



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst, Fake AH Crew, GTA AU, Gen, Hurt with no Comfort, the others are mentioned in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 05:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingFarbauti/pseuds/KingFarbauti
Summary: It was almost horrifying how quickly ‘fondness’ could turn into a grief-fueled obsession, when fondness and memories were all you had left.





	La Vie en Rose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DmitriMolotov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DmitriMolotov/gifts).



> heavily inspired by BioShock Infiniate.
> 
> based off of the events of 'Divided We Fall' by [DmitriMolotov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DmitriMolotov/profile)

It was strange, how quickly life could move on, even when it was missing something vital; even when you felt half-complete at the best of times. Like some hasty drawing, between the pages of college notebooks. A means to pass the time in boring lectures, on subjects you didn’t quite care to remember. Never fully completed, immediately forgotten. It was never meant to be a finished product, just a memory to look back on in fondness, years down the road.

Though, it was almost horrifying how quickly ‘fondness’ could turn into a grief-fueled obsession, when fondness and memories were all you had left.

It had been years - Jeremy had lost count. Five? Perhaps it was closer to seven. He often forgot about the first two years he spent trapped at the bottom of whatever bottle he could find; whatever bottle he deemed deep enough to drown his demons in. To baptize them in fermented waters, and watch as that last bubble of frantic air slipped between their jagged teeth. To free himself, in some small way, of their tortures and endless cycles of sorrow, and their piercing blue eyes.

He could still recall the day, with a grotesque vividity, that their lives had changed forever, in the worst of ways. Jeremy could remember the scent of gunpowder as it singed his nostrils with it’s aroma - as sharp and obtrusive as every bullet that ripped itself from the chamber of his gun. He could remember the words that made his heart stop: _You’ll never take me alive!_

Did his heart ever restart? He had to wonder. It was difficult to recall a time when he could ever feel it beating proudly within his chest, full of life and bleeding resilience. Now it only ever ached, and caused him pain. Dull, defeated, and broken.

The strength at which Jeremy Dooley could remember the day that Ryan Haywood was taken prisoner by Shane Dowel made the sniper question if it had only happened the day before. It certainly felt like it, some days, when certain sights or smells would instantly transport him back to the moment when he sat hunched in the living room of the safe house; desperate and greedy to find a way to rescue his best friend.

However, despite their rescue being successful, the man they retrieved was not the man they remembered. Ryan Haywood died in that warehouse, long before The Fakes ever found him, and the man they recovered was all but a stranger to them.

Although they had tried to return Ryan to his former life, and although they had tried to do their absolute best by Ryan in his recovery, it was all for naught.

For weeks, Jeremy watched his best friend struggle to cope with the trauma he had suffered through. He watched Ryan struggle to survive. He watched, one day, as Ryan dissolved into a rambling fit, muttering to himself over and over, “ _We’re not so different, we’re not so different. We’re not so different!_ ”

It had taken hours for him to stop. And it was only the beginning.

There were times the Crew thought, with an overwhelmingly foolish hope, that perhaps Ryan was slowly coming back to them. Maybe he was adjusting, however slowly; there was a moment when he nearly smiled at one of Gavin’s idiotic questions. But then that hope was gone in an instant, as Ryan would ultimately crumble to the floor in a fit of screaming sobs, repeating: “ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry!_ ”

Each of them watched for weeks as Ryan quickly unraveled. With varying degrees of sympathy and terror, they watched Ryan’s mind collapse in on itself. Only Jeremy seemed to have any shred of faith left in his withered heart; only Jeremy remained steadfast at Ryan’s side, offering whatever help he could to his failing friend.

Only Jeremy was surprised, the night that Ryan took up one of the many shotguns littered throughout the penthouse, in a fit of rage at nothing. As Ryan growled at phantoms lingering in the corners of the room -- “ _You’re not sorry, but you **will** be..._ ” -- seconds before pulling the trigger.

Only Jeremy rushed to catch Ryan when he fell, the others all too horrified to think, or breathe, let alone move. The taller man crumbled against Jeremy, easily dragging the sniper down to the floor beneath his dead weight, the hole in his chest going clean through to the other side. The sight would haunt Jeremy for the rest of his living days. Just as Ryan’s final words would.

Struggling frantically for breath, Ryan sluggishly lifted his hand towards Jeremy’s face. Though the wound had just barely avoided Ryan’s heart, he had little more than seconds at best. Soon there would be no more adrenaline to keep his ruined body going; soon he would succumb to the shock and his injuries. Soon, it would be the end of all Jeremy knew.

Blood poured from the corners of Ryan’s lips as he drowned quickly in the crimson fluid. Brushing Jeremy’s jawline with his fingers as he grasped frantically for any amount of contact, smearing blood in their wake, Ryan rasped; his voice grappling to come out above a whisper, and failing. “ _C'est... lui pour moi, moi pour lui…. dans la vie. ...Il me l'a... dit, l'a.. juré pour la vie…._ ”

His feeble voice faltered into nothing before anything more could be said, the butchered French hovering between them - it’s meaning lost on Jeremy for the moment, and slowly Ryan’s eyes drifted away to stare across the room as his breathing stuttered to a halt. Slowly, his eyes went wide, and grew distant, as his body fell completely limp within Jeremy’s steadfast arms.

Jeremy had seen the light go out in them, had watched Ryan’s soul escape from this worldly prison, and it wasn’t until the rest of the Crew rushed in to separate them that Jeremy even realized he was screaming.

It had been years.

Maybe today was the anniversary? Jeremy couldn’t be certain. This date felt familiar, but he might have been imagining it. Sitting on the top of the Maze bank with his feet dangling precariously over the edge, watching the clouds roll across the sky in a breath-taking palette of pink and lavender, as the sun crawled away to hide beneath the horizon, and the atmosphere shifted to a lonely navy blue. He could faintly make out the more prominent stars, slowly coming out to greet him.

Something compelled him to take out his cell phone, and dial a number that hadn’t been touched in years, but remained burned into the back of his skull. A familiar, beloved voice greeted him.

“ _Yeah…?_ ” It growled, unimpressed, and immediately Jeremy’s throat began to burn.

“Ryan, you there? I miss you.”

Silence on the other end, though Jeremy could faintly hear breathing. Perhaps a sigh, impatient but sympathetic.

“You were the only one who ever--...” Jeremy stopped himself, collecting his thoughts and steadying his breathing as his eyes began to gloss over. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried. Eventually, he settles on the simple, honest truth. “You were my only friend.”

He starts to repeat Ryan’s name, but the mercenary’s voice interrupts him before he can finish. “ _I’m not even **here**. I’m a projection of your own--._ ”

It’s a truth that burns more painfully than any alcohol ever could. Jeremy would gladly take a thousand shots of whiskey, if it meant numbing himself to this agony. Wounds were re-opening, as he cradled his phone against his ear desperately, and the sound he makes stops Ryan’s phantom in it’s tracks.

“Could you humor me, then? Please?” He begs, as tears began to roll down his cheeks in fat droplets; scalding hot, and leaving trails of fire across his skin.

Ryan sighs again, and it sounds a little sad this time. The tone of his voice matches as he eventually murmurs into Jeremy’s ear, “ _I think…. Ryan would miss you._ ”

The admission wrenches a hard sob from Jeremy, and for a moment all the sniper can do is cry quietly, Ryan’s breathing drifting through the receiver as the sun continues to set, and the nightlife wakes slowly around them. Jeremy couldn't care less about any of it; about the city thriving below him, about the Crew waiting back at the penthouse, about the life he had once loved so dearly. The life of crime he had been so proud to be a part of.

Ryan had taken it all with him, to his grave, and now only his ghost remained to give any sort of solace.

Eventually, Jeremy mustered the strength to utter one final farewell; the words that haunted him for so long, their meaning finally understood.

“C'est toi pour moi... moi pour toi dans la vie…. Vous m'avez dit. L'ai juré à vie...”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not sorry.


End file.
